It's easy to trick yourself into thinking that those sports and energy drinks are in some way good for you. Sure, they're loaded with sugar, but they rehydrate you, or help you stay awake in class, or give you wings. Yeah, well, a new study has found that they also taking the enamel right off your precious teeth. The study found that consumption of these sports and energy drinks has skyrocketed, especially among teens, and it's causing serious damage to people's chompers.

Researchers exposed human tooth enamel samples to 13 sports drinks and and nine energy drinks in a way that simulated the drinking of one of these beverages every few hours—which, apparently, is pretty typical of the way kids consume these things. They found that damage to the enamel was clear after just five days of exposure to these super acidic drinks. The energy drinks were the worst offenders, as they caused twice as much damage as the sports drinks did. Yikes. The obvious solution is to not drink them at all, but if you or your children cannot forego them entirely, then you are advised to chew sugar-free gum or rinse with water after drinking one, which will help return acidity levels in your mouth to normal. But whatever you do don't rush—though it's hard not to rush after jacking yourself up on one of those things—to brush your teeth right away, because all that will do is spread the acid around on your teeth and make it worse.